TWO-WAY MIRROR
Closing on the cloud chamber dream, a pair of contrails in the clear blue sky. Twinkie jumps into my lap for a nap. Though we don't see it, I'm sure a plane is out there.
It could be in another dimension. This sheet of paper could be a two-way mirror. On this side is what I'm writing. The other way – empty as the clear blue. She's purring softly. Another dimension? Tempting, but void is not a dimension, has no parameters, no way of fixing the position of that plane flying through.. However, if others see the contrails, we might agree a plane should be there.
Everyone gets their say. Jasmine trailing over our summer porch has its play on the world stage. On the other side is proof of life amidst a potpourri of mingled Edens, vistas carved on apples, songs and chants with inherited rhythms, trolly tracks with braided horse bridles. Throw in a refrigerator. These will do for proof. Beyond a stubbed toe, reality is a collaboration.
Where did it go, that plane Twinkie didn't see? Amidst her purring, also, I wonder where did the plane's energy go? An important question for scientists who tell us what to expect in reality.
Expectations become reality. We find that energy can be transformed. Heat becomes light, and vice versa. Build a fire, or fire up a laser. Recall Einstein's famous equation.
The energy of heat can be transferred, which is of great interest to scientists, not only for where it goes but for how it goes. Fire a gun. Suddenly heated and expanding gasses move the bullet. Or drop an ice cube in a glass of water. It slowly melts. Of real interest is how the bullet will not go back to being ammo again. Or how the melted water will not go back to being ice again unless, maybe in a freezer, at least as much energy as was expended to make it into an ice cube is expended. We're observing a one way transfer of entropy, a measure of how agitated, disordered and chaotic water molecules can become. High entropy can't go back to low entropy without some expenditure of energy. An equation in the Second Law of thermodynamics marks this characteristic, that entropy, which rides on the concept of time like a bucking horse, only increases. It never falls off (which seems counter intuitive). Scientifically speaking, however, the universe is always winding down, heading towards complete chaos, non-differentiation, the end result of which is that all life ceases. Ultimately, planets don't revolve. Water doesn't boil. There is no water, in fact, for contrails.
Suppose a precognitive experience has stubbed your toe. That is a problem, scientifically speaking. The Second Law says it can't happen. But it did. Something is out of kilter.
As far as I'm concerned, and I'm sure others with a similar experience, or a range of other possibilities such as hunches, telepathy, former lives, near death experiences, all of which cannot be reliably repeated and are thus excluded from scientific consideration, science is blind sided. Classical cause and effect science is out of the loop.
For those on the sidelines, it's worth noting that mathematics, the methodology of science, requires a suspension of disbelief. The very crux of calculus is a necessary operator (square root of negative one) called “the imaginary.”
If all of this seems too far removed from everyday life, consider how the hegemony of scientific limitations plays out on the world stage. Mathematicians develop equations such as Einstein's E=MC² and limit their considerations to just the release of energy, leaving it to others to decide practical applications. It devolves into a battle of technologists harboring harmful intent. But who is better qualified to ponder the implications than those mathematical discoverers? Science does not proceed in a vacuum, except as convenient for scientists. And in that case . . .
Who will be responsible for the plethora of ills we face today? Chaos is neglect. If we do not take care of our planet, a living organism that includes all of us, life will wither. If we allow scientists and technological fools to build a doomsday machine, it stands poised to destroy us. If we neglect what our fossil fueled machines are doing to our climate, we suffer a disaster at least as great as nuclear war. We cannot reasonably neglect what we expect to create beyond the contrail.
Speaking of which, it was a network of airlines that delivered COVID-19 worldwide. Ease of being a vector, learnt from dealing with the ebola virus, was neglected, then multiplied by the existing fleet.
Life here on this planet is far broader than classical science cares to acknowledge. But living beings are not separate from each other, or from our planet, or from what seems beyond the contrail, on out into the entire universe. Scientifically earned knowledge will be transcended, or be obliterated in consequence. Anyone on the world stage, self-considered, may seem a mote, or maybe a mighty leader. Everyone has a part to play. Each person influences the whole. Sitting wherever you are, in your backyard perhaps with other forms of life, is where and how it happens. Where you might even reconnect with some old friends.
Twinkie has gone to sleep.
